Canadian Solar unveiled an aggressive roadmap in 2026 which includes ramping up asset sales, while also increasing its efforts in the data center space.

Ismael Guerrero, CEO of Canadian Solar’s multi-lateral IPP Recurrent Energy, said on the call that the company has started to look into the data center business through regional joint ventures with data center experts, mainly in the US and Spain.

“We see significant synergies with our core expertise at land acquisitions, interconnection process, permitting and community engagement as four of our core competencies that are crucial to the successful and timely deployment of data centers,” said Guerrero.

In Spain, he pointed to 112 MW of projects with interconnections and land secured in Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, plus and additional 40 MW with interconnections in Madrid. In the North American market, Recurrent had 1.26 GW of solar and 1.4 GWh of storage with interconnection, according to its investor slide presentation.

However, Canadian Solar’s management was adamant later in the call that its intersection with data centers would not impact its strategy around selling projects.

An analyst asked whether Recurrent would consider monetizing projects earlier in the process with great land position and in certain interconnection queues and/or leveraging some of these positions into data center deals.

However, Canadian Solar Chairman and CEO, Shawn Qu said it is not part of the company’s asset sale strategy as it has enough projects that they expect to sell after COD.

“We can not only get value of the project development, but also project financing, because…Recurrent is also an expert in the tax equity financing market in the US market,” said Qu, adding that if you sell projects at or before notice-to-proceed (NTP), you “don’t get the value right and leave too much money off the table.”

Canadian Solar expects to accelerate project sales, at present in 2026, as way to recycle capital and also reduce leverage. Qu would not disclose any further details on the plan as he is still formulating the 2026 Annual Operations Plan which won’t get signoff until February, but may have more details on the company’s 4Q25 earnings call in March. Canadian Solar did not address any rumors, nor was it asked on the call if it had been looking into selling the Recurrent platform.

In the investor presentation, Recurrent said it had project sales of 585 MW during the quarter, including the sale of a 200 MW BESS portfolio to ENGIE in Italy.

In the US, Qu said that both of its projects in Arizona that Recurrent is building in conjunction with Arizona Public Service, Desert Bloom Storage and Papago Solar would both be finished by 1H26.

NPM Interconnection queue data also identified two other projects, a 100 MW paired Acadiana project in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, and 250 MW Iguala Solar, at an advanced stage. Both projects have interconnection agreements, but documentation indicates that both projects are likely to get done in 2027, according to NPM SIGNALS.

Overall, Qu said Recurrent at present has safe-harbored 1.5 GW of solar and 2.5 GWh of storage, with the goal of hitting 3 GW of solar and 7 GWh of storage by the end of 2026, so it has line of site on pipeline execution in the next four years.

Globally, Qu also pointed out that Recurrent plans to reduce its solar pipeline as function of “execution of our high quality pipeline rather then expanding it.”

This included recently getting consent from the English government on its paired Tillbridge project it is building with Tribus Clean Energy.

“Tilbrook will connect to the grid through a substation that was previously used by a decommissioned coal plant, continuing to support the UK’s decarbonization goals while providing reliable and sustainable energy to the communities it will serve,” added Qu

Supply Chain

Separately, Canadian Solar updated timelines to increase its solar and battery storage supply chain through CSI Solar and its e-Storage unit.

The company expects phase 1 of its solar cell factory in Indiana to be ready by 1Q26 and phase 1 of its lithium-ion storage factory in Kentucky to be ready by the end of 2026.

“It will strengthen our US supply chain and support domestic energy security,” said Qu.

e-STORAGE separately had announced that it had been fully contracted to provided an energy storage solution and EPC services for the 411 MW/1,858 MWh Skyview 2 project in Ontario being developed by Potentia Renewables.

NPM SIGNALS published a transcript of the earnings call, CLICK HERE to view it.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers.

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